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Grieving mothers in Washington to fight police shootings

These nine women are linked, bound to a club that no parent ever wants to join as a member. Now these mothers of young black and Hispanic men killed by police are coming to the nation's capitol Tuesday to call

Grieving mothers in Washington to fight police shootings

A protester stands next to a sign listing popular hashtags and slogans of the current police protest movement on Dec. 8, 2014, in downtown Seattle during a protest against the decisions not to indict police officers who who killed men in Ferguson, Mo., and New York.(Photo: Ted S. Warren, AP)

Now these women, mothers of young black and Hispanic men killed by police, are in the nation's capital to call for police changes and more accountability for officers who kill.

"I have to be a voice for my son and be a voice against police brutality," says Valerie Bell, whose unarmed son, Sean Bell, was killed in the early morning hours of his wedding day in 2006 by New York City police who fired into his car 50 times. Police thought Bell and his friends were getting a gun from their car after an argument outside a strip club where he was having his bachelor party.

"He wasn't the first, and the way things are going, he won't be the last," Bell says.

The women are meeting Wednesday with members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Democrats John Conyers of Michigan, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and Charles Rangel of New York, and will hold a vigil outside the Justice Department in the evening.

CODEPINK, the DC Hands Up Coalition, Mothers Against Police Brutality and the National Congress of Black Women are organizing the events.

The women's visit comes against a backdrop of protests and growing frustration nationwide after grand juries in New York and Missouri declined to indict white officers responsible for the deaths of two unarmed black men. Eric Garner died after New York City police put him in a chokehold while questioning him about the suspected sale of untaxed cigarettes. Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, Mo., in a confrontation with officer Darren Wilson, who has since resigned from the force.

More than 1,000 protesters in Berkeley, Calif., shut down a freeway for the third night Monday. Protesters have marched to the Fruitvale Station, a subway stop where a Bay Area Rapid Transit officer shot Oscar Grant to death on New Year's Day 2009. Police restrained Grant after receiving reports of a fight on the crowded platform. Officer Johannes Mehserle was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the shooting and sentenced to two years in jail.

President Obama last week announced a task force to study best police practices and a $263 million plan to promote community policing, a strategy that focuses on building relationships with members of a community; officers are often assigned to specific areas and walk their beats. The plan includes $75 million for 50,000 cameras to be worn by officers.

Police with wooden sticks stand guard on Dec. 8, 2014, after they cleared a group of protesters who had stopped traffic at 4th and Pine in downtown Seattle during a demonstration against the decisions not to indict police officers.(Photo: Ted S. Warren, AP)

Johnson says any discussion of police changes must include holding officers accountable when they kill unarmed people, whether it is indicting them or making them financially responsible to their victims' families.

"They are killing our children with impunity," says Collette Flanagan, a former IBM executive who founded Mothers Against Police Brutality after her 25-year-old son, Clinton Allen, was shot and killed by a Dallas police officer in 2013. The officer was responding to a disturbance call and chased Allen after he ran. The officer was not charged.

"We are beyond a few bad apples -- we are into orchards of bad apples," she says of officers who kill. She says a culture that protects police officers enables them to go unidentified or walk away unpunished when they kill someone.

"Meanwhile, a lot of mothers are hurting," she says. "I know what it's like to lose the most prized thing in your life and no one is listening."

She hopes her visit to Washington will raise awareness of the problem, so the circle of grieving mothers does not get wider.